“5. Conflating Migration, Terrorism, and Islam: Mediations of Syrian Refugees in Canadian Print Media Following the 2015 Paris Attacks” in “Resisting the Dehumanization of Refugees”
Chapter 5 Conflating Migration, Terrorism, and Islam Mediations of Syrian Refugees in Canadian Print Media Following the 2015 Paris Attacks
Nariya Khasanova
A Syrian refugee “crisis” galvanized the attention of Canadian print media, with coverage alternating between “victimhood” and “violence” (Mustafa and Pilus 2020; Xu 2021; Tyyskä et al. 2018; Wallace 2018) and grounded in “asylum seeking being not a right, but rather a gesture of Western generosity” (Xu 2021, 672).1
Wallace’s extensive and nuanced analysis of the “crisis” demonstrates that the media’s representation of Syrian refugees in Canada was sporadic (see also Lawlor and Tolley 2017) and that framing varies, being largely responsive to events and their socio-political contexts. The coverage of international events—such as the September 2015 publication of Alan Kurdi’s photo, followed by the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris two months later (both of which coincided with Canada’s federal election and thus became subjects of political debates)—provides a good example of how quickly “humanizing depictions of refugees” can be replaced with conflict-driven representations (Wallace 2018, 207, 222).
The terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13 and 14, 2015, and the discovery of a Syrian passport at the crime scene sparked emotional reactions in Canada, including hate crimes targeting Muslims in Ontario and divisive political rhetoric about the upcoming resettlement of refugees. The attacks became a pivotal moment for the securitization of refugees (see Hammerstadt 2014) by the media and politicians reviving the long-problematized linkage among migration, crime, illegality, and terrorism (see Benson 2013; Caviedes 2015; Lecheler, Matthes, and Boomgaarden 2019; Lawlor and Tolley 2017, as cited in Galantino 2020). The mere possibility that asylum seekers could be infiltrated by terrorists brought forward the discussion that terrorism is rooted in one’s religious beliefs as opposed to extremist ideologies. Analyzing Canadian media in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, Wallace finds that “religious framing was largely used in conjunction with the ‘conflict frame’” (2018, 222). These results are congruent with the findings of Lawlor and Tolley’s study on the media’s framing of refugees, concluding that the backgrounds of refugees often get scrutinized in the coverage of “focusing events” with an element of conflict (2017, 985–86).
Two other Western studies focused on the coverage of Syrian refugees in Swedish and US contexts find that it is through the media’s representation of religion—and Islam in particular—that refugees get either “othered” or included (Abdelhady and Fristedt Malmberg 2018; Nassar 2020).
A six-country study employing human-validated sentiment analysis reveals that the combination of three topics—asylum seeking, terrorism, and Islam—results in more fear and lower levels of compassion toward refugees. In contrast, the coverage of refugees in isolation from Islam and terrorism is characterized by the lowest levels of fear and the highest levels of compassion (Chan et al. 2020).
Thus, through this discursive linkage of three topics grounded in an inaccurate and misguided representation of Islam, Syrian refugees, the majority of whom are Muslims or perceived as Muslims (Nassar 2020), are “cast as suspected community” (Chan et al. 2020, 3571) and get “othered” (Kumar 2010) and “dehumanized” (see Esses, Medianu, and Lawson 2013 and this volume’s introduction). Being instrumental in shaping the beliefs and attitudes of the public, the Western media’s framing of Islam as a global menace rooted in Huntington’s (1996) idea of the clash of civilizations is deeply problematic. Moreover, it is affecting the daily realities of millions of Muslims, including those in Canada. For example, Kazemipur notes that compared to average Canadians, Muslim Canadians have a two times higher chance of experiencing discrimination due to their ethnicity and culture and a more than four times higher chance of being discriminated against on the basis of their religion (Kazemipur 2018, 273).
While all studies of the Canadian media’s treatment of the Syrian refugee “crisis” currently available address religious framing as an important dimension (in particular, see Tyyskä et al. 2018; Economou 2019), a deeper and more extensive analysis of the media coverage of Syrian refugees in relation to Islam can offer further insights into the inability of Canadian print media to differentiate three topics: asylum seeking, terrorism, and Islam. This task has become the inspiration and focus of my study.
More specifically, I will examine the media coverage of Syrian refugees in relation to Islam during the week following the 2015 Paris attacks. I will look at two English-language newspapers in Canada with high circulation rates: the Globe and Mail and the National Post. My research will be divided into three main sections: (1) a literature review of the Western media coverage of Muslims and Islam, (2) a presentation of the methodology and analysis, and (3) concluding remarks on the media’s use of combined discourse toward Syrian refugees in the Canadian context.
Literature Review
Multiple studies have examined the media coverage of Muslims and Islam in the West post-9/11 (Abu-Laban and Trimble 2006; Baker, Gabrielatos, and McEnery 2013; Falah and Nagel. 2005; Karim 2000; Kazemipur 2014, 82–86; McCafferty 2005; Sultan 2016; Jaspal and Cinnirella 2010; Poole 2016; Tsagarousianou 2016, as cited in Smetz and Bozdag 2018, 293). Muslims are often represented as a group perpetrating violence and terror, unwilling to integrate, and engaged in “war” against the West. These anti-Islamic media portrayals are rooted in an Orientalist discourse of Islam as Other and a threat to Western civilization. Such a narrative is rooted in the deeply problematic idea of Muslims as “monolithic, violent, and irrational barbarians” and Islam as “the antithesis of the Western liberal values developed over the last three hundred years” (Karim 2000, 11–12).
Analyzing the coverage of Islam in the Western media as early as 1981, Edward Said, the author of the post-colonial critique Orientalism, states in his book Covering Islam, “In no really significant way is there a direct correspondence between the ‘Islam’ in common Western usage and the enormously varied life that goes on within the world of Islam, with its more than 800,000,000 people, its millions of square miles of territory principally in Africa and Asia, its dozens of societies, states, histories, geographies, culture” (1981, x). Addressing the most common stereotype of “Muslims being Arabs and Arabs being Muslims,” McCafferty states that “Arabs don’t number more than 12 percent of the world’s Muslims” (2005, 20). Rane, Ewart, and Martinkus affirm that nearly 60 percent of all Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region (2014, 180).
Edward Said aptly notes, Western “Islam” rooted in the generalization of monolithic and dangerous “Islamic mindset” has entered the consciousness of the people in the West due to its connection to sensational issues like the Iranian hostage crisis, Afghanistan, and terrorism (1997). While there are certain instances of “responsible media coverage” presenting Muslims as a diverse rather than a homogenous group and emphasizing that they are peaceful citizens, the bigger picture suggests a rather negative representation (see Ahmed and Matthes 2017 for a meta-analysis). Muslims are frequently mentioned in the context of war and conflict. More often, Muslims are portrayed as oppressive, anti-intellectual, restrictive, extremely dangerous, fundamentalist, and alien to democratic values. They are frequently brought to the attention of the public as involved in corruption or crime, fanatical, and threatening to liberal values (Akbarzadeh and Smith 2005). Another context in which Muslims often appear is the media coverage of political elections, where they are presented as voters with very different priorities from non-Muslims (Abu-Laban and Trimble 2006, 41; Baker et al. 2013, 18–19).
Such coverage feeds into public fears, lower levels of trust toward Muslims, and anti-Muslim sentiments. The culmination of these fears can be attributed to the post-9/11 period, as noted in Ahmed and Matthes’s (2017) meta-analysis focused on the media coverage of Muslims and Islam from 2000 to 2015.
Multiple media studies examining the coverage of Islam and Muslims in the Western media context highlight 9/11 as an important milestone that has contributed to the intensification of Islamophobic media framing (Abu-Laban and Trimble 2006; Baker, Gabrielatos, and McEnery 2013; Falah and Nagel 2005; Karim 2000; McCafferty 2005; Sultan 2016). Such media framing is largely centered on a very dangerous and false narrative of “Islamic terrorism.” In this narrative, there is no place for terror committed by non-Muslims. Referring to Western interventionism (the United States has invaded fourteen Muslim countries since 1980) in the Middle East as indicative of terror, Sultan aptly notes that this kind of discourse of terror is barely present or very unpopular in the media (2016, 4, 5). Aligned with the position of Sultan, Moore addresses this discursive construction of hypocrisy: “When we kill civilians we shouldn’t call it ‘collateral damage.’ When they kill civilians we call it terrorism. But we drop bombs on Iraq, and more than 6,000 Iraqi civilians are slaughtered. We then apologize for the ‘spillover’” (2003, 124). Nevertheless, the dominant discourse on terror is still built around the ideas of inherently violent Islam and Muslim/Islamic extremism. With the media painting Muslims as violent extremists committing suicidal acts “in the name of Allah,” not surprisingly, the blame for all terrorist attacks immediately falls on Muslims, even if there is no evidence suggesting their involvement (Karim 2000, 79).
Another deeply problematic generalization widely present in the Western media coverage of Muslims is that Islam is inherently anti-Jewish.2 As Karim (2000) notes in his book Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence, this narrative of Muslims posing a threat to Jews helps divert attention from northern Christians’ guilt for the Holocaust. He further brings the example of how when covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the media compared Saddam Hussein with Hitler and Iraqi missiles holding poisonous gas with Nazi gas chambers. As Karim aptly notes, this coverage not only creates a false dichotomous relationship between Muslims and Jews but also perpetuates the idea of terrorist crimes against Jewish people being always committed by Muslims (110–12). Thus, the media’s representation of Muslims is driven by three key narratives, including Islam as Other and versus the West, Islam as antisemitic, and Islamic/Muslim terrorism.
Methodology
My chapter examines coverage by the Globe and Mail and the National Post of Syrian refugees in relation to Islam during the week following the 2015 Paris attacks. Drawing my methodological approach from the studies of Akbarzadeh and Smith (2005) and Abu-Laban and Trimble (2006), my analysis is guided by the following research questions:
- 1. What portrayals of Syrian refugees in relation to Islam are most frequently propagated in the Globe and Mail and the National Post?
- 2. Are certain representations recurrent?
- 3. How does the media use the discursive opportunity to connect migration, terrorism, and Islam?
- 4. Does the media’s use of combined discourse contribute to the “othering” and dehumanization or inclusion and rehumanization of refugees?
To complete my research task, I searched for articles mentioning “Syrian refugees” and “Muslims or Islam or Mosque.” I limited my search to the period of November 13 to November 20, 2015 (a week after the series of Paris attacks). Besides constituting a pivotal moment for the securitization of refugees in Canada, these horrific terrorist attacks in France coincided with the Liberal plan to resettle twenty-five thousand Syrian refugees and the hate crime targeting Muslims when a mosque was set on fire in Peterborough on November 14, 2015.
The Globe and Mail and the National Post have been chosen for my analysis as two English-language newspapers in Canada with high circulation rates. To complete this analysis, I used Factiva, the database that provides full-text access to major Canadian newspapers, and entered the following search string: “Syrian refugees and (Muslims or Islam or Mosque).”
Analysis
My search yielded fifty-one entries that resulted in seventeen news articles after excluding duplicates and commentaries.
The co-occurrence of events—the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris and the upcoming arrival of Syrian refugees—provided the media with a discursive opportunity to link migration, terrorism, and Islam. The majority of the articles (fourteen) do reinforce this problematic linkage, and no article provides a voice to those most impacted by the discussion—refugees themselves. The act of vandalism that occurred in Canada the day after the Paris attacks when the mosque in Peterborough was set on fire received significantly less attention from both newspapers: only three articles within the period of November 13 to November 20, 2015, covered this egregious hate crime. The narratives surrounding this event will be explored further in my analysis too.
There is an obvious difference in how journalists from both newspapers present information. More specifically, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the National Post’s coverage of events in Paris is largely opinionated and clearly grounded in Orientalist discourse, whereas that of the Globe and Mail is mostly factual and based on statements from officials and politicians, as demonstrated in the examples below:
Roosevelt’s advice was followed until Obama determined that appeasement was a useful antidote to past American wrongdoing against Iran, Cuba, and the Palestinians, and very tentatively, at least certain varieties of Muslim terrorists. [. . .] The Syrian refugees, especially the very large proportion of them who are Christians, are unlikely to be jihadists. (Conrad Black, National Post, November 17, 2015)
So it is somewhat worrying to see that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government continues to insist it will resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year, damn the torpedoes—and how many bien-pensant Canadians are absolutely certain this presents no risk whatsoever. (Chris Selley, National Post, November 18, 2015)
Friday’s bloody attacks in Paris have stirred concern among some Canadian politicians about the prime minister’s pledge to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year—with Saskatchewan’s premier demanding the plan to be suspended to ensure Canadians aren’t threatened by “malevolent” terrorists. (Mark Kennedy, National Post, November 17, 2015)
Dr. Hoskins, who is co-chair of an ad hoc cabinet committee on the refugees with Immigration Minister Michael Chan, said Wednesday he is expecting to hear within days the federal government’s plan, which will detail how many refugees are expected to arrive, the timing of the arrivals [how many each day, for example] and at which points of entry in the country. [. . .] Meanwhile, RCMP Commissioner Paulson, whose agency will conduct database checks on all refugees, said that all necessary security work can be quickly accomplished. (Daniel Leblanc and Jane Taber, Globe and Mail, November 19, 2015)
In a letter to Mr. Trudeau Monday, Mr. Wall wrote that he is “concerned” that swiftly bringing large numbers of asylum seekers into the country “could severely undermine the refugee screening process.” “The recent attacks in Paris are a grim reminder of the death and destruction even a small number of malevolent individuals can inflict upon a peaceful country and its citizens,” he wrote. “Surely, we do not want to be date-driven or numbers-driven in an endeavour that may affect the safety of our citizens and the security of our country.” (Andrian Morrow, Ingrid Peritz, and Steven Chase, Globe and Mail, November 17, 2015)
However, as some of such statements are dehumanizing and fearmongering and since oftentimes authors do not make much effort to refute them and engage the reader in critical thinking, both agencies can be blamed for the securitization and othering of Syrian refugees, albeit to varying degrees.
The media’s representation of Syrian refugees in relation to Islam is prompted by the rise of an alleged Islamic State and the discovery of a Syrian passport at the scene of the Paris crime. The indication that a new terrorist entity called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has nothing in common with Islam through either renaming it to “alleged” or “Islamist” or pointing otherwise is critical in shaping the opinions of those with a limited understanding of Islamic religion and history. Almost all the articles used the name as it is (see examples below), arguably giving legitimacy to this horrific group of “faux-religious sociopaths,” as eloquently described by a journalist from the National Post in his article (Den Tandt 2015):
Resettling Syrian refugees helps France and other countries in Europe and elsewhere cope with large numbers of displaced people, Ambassador Nicolas Chapuis said, and is part of the global struggle against the Islamic State. (Campbell Clark, Globe and Mail, November 18, 2015)
The Paris attacks on Friday, for which the Islamic State claimed responsibility, left at least 129 people dead (Adrian Morrow, Ingrid Peritz, and Steven Chase, Globe and Mail, November 17, 2015)
The English version of the audio statement released by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant had terrorism experts wondering whether it had been voiced by someone who had learned the language in Canada or the northern United States. (Stewart Bell, National Post, November 16, 2015)
Canada can’t honestly claim, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did in his first statement the night of the attacks, to have offered France “all of our help and support” when his first order of business, even before formally taking office, was to announce that the six lousy jets which have been Canada’s contribution to the US-led coalition, bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, will be coming home. (Christie Blatchford, National Post, November 16, 2015)
Two authors—one from the Globe and Mail and another one from the National Post—abandoned this naming convention and began to call ISIL “so-called Islamic.” The same could be noted about the discovery of a Syrian passport. The journalists were divided into those who chose to mention that the passport could have been fake, those who reported that one of the attackers had Syrian origin, and those who chose not to mention it whatsoever. The reporting of the Syrian passport by both newspapers is exemplified below:
Reports that one Paris attacker carried a Syrian passport that was used by someone who landed in Greece fuelled concerns about potential Islamic State infiltrators, but French officials have suggested the passport might have been a forgery. (Campbell Clark, Globe and Mail, November 18, 2015)
The promised resettlement of 25,000 Syrian refugees by Dec. 31 is being challenged by some provincial premiers, mayors and others after the discovery one of the Paris attackers entered Europe among the refugees carrying a fake Syrian passport. (Ian Macleod, National Post, November 18, 2015)
Among the suspects in the bombings were two Palestinians and a Syrian. Police believe the attackers emerged from the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp, where thousands of refugees from Syria’s civil war now crowd in with generations of Palestinian refugees who fled here following the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. (Mark MacKinnon, Globe and Mail, November 14, 2015)
As can be noted from the text, the last statement is also entwined with the problematic narrative of “terrorists being produced in refugee camps”:
Assuming Canada resettles Syrian refugees holed up in Lebanese, Turkish and Jordanian camps, logic suggests there won’t be scads of potential threats to weed out. But it would be foolhardy to be sanguine about it. (Chris Selley, National Post, November 18, 2015)
However, in my selection of articles, such a narrative was present only in two, and counter-narratives were provided at least once by both agencies in their reporting, with the Globe and Mail citing the former mayor of Calgary Naheed Nenshi:
The mayor said Canada has a “tiny minority” of people who assume anyone who is a Muslim or an Arab “must be in cahoots with the terrorists that they are, in fact, actually fleeing from.” He also questioned some of the terrorists-will-come logic being used in an attempt to thwart the Syrian refugee plan in this country. He said if he was organizing a plot to infiltrate Canada, he would consider the fact that terrorists were able to get people in France and Belgium to do horrible things inside their own countries. “If someone pulls out a French passport, they can be in Calgary in seven hours,” the mayor said, “without checks of any kind. So why would I want to embed bad guys, put them on leaky boats where they could die, have them sit in a refugee camp possibly for 18 months, in the hopes they might end up in a country where they might want to do bad stuff? It’s way easier to do bad stuff in other ways.” (Gary Mason, Globe and Mail, November 19, 2015)
For the truth is that conflating Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists with Syrian refugees does not bear scrutiny. It is belied by the fact that most of ISIL’s victims are Muslim; that the refugees Canada seeks to rescue are already in camps administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and have been for years; that the Paris terrorists held European Union passports, and thus could presumably have entered Canada simply by getting on a plane, had they wished to; and that the attacks in Canada last October were carried out by homegrown ISIL wannabes. (Michael Den Tandt, National Post, November 20, 2015)
It is through this conflation of migration, terrorism, and Islam that journalists discuss the necessity of “proper” and “thorough” screening of Syrian refugees. The division along ideological lines in this coverage is also clear.
The Globe and Mail is making every effort to ensure that “proper” screening of refugees is being considered, including Canada’s selective policy of bringing in the most vulnerable, who bear fewer security risks. Most of the time, the journalists deliver these assurances by quoting official statements as opposed to providing their own opinion on the issue, as demonstrated in the following examples:
Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins said Monday the province will stick to its commitment to bring in 10,000 Syrian refugees. He added that he trusts the federal government to do the proper security checks. Asked whether the Paris attacks changed the government’s thinking on refugees, he said, “Not at all, and I don’t think it changes the public’s resolve, either.” (Adrian Morrow, Ingrid Peritz, and Steven Chase, Globe and Mail, November 17, 2015)
Mr. Goodale said that the first objective of the government’s promise to take in 25,000 refugees is humanitarian, in order to “rescue people who are in terrible conditions and fleeing from the scourge that is [the Islamic State],” However, he added the government would meet its objective “without any diminution or reduction in our security work.” The Public Safety Minister said federal officials would conduct database checks and biometrics tests to verify the ID of all refugees, in addition to submitting them to interviews. To do the task quickly, some officials from other agencies are being seconded to the operation, including border guards. The government will bring in many refugees who have been stuck in camps for years, Mr. Goodale added, giving a priority to those who are the most vulnerable and pose the least potential security risk. (Daniel Leblanc and Jane Taber, Globe and Mail, November 19, 2015)
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the government was working across departments and with security services and other agencies to ensure the refugee screening process was “as thorough and competent and effective as possible. Can it be 100-per-cent foolproof? Well, nothing in life is 100 per cent,” the minister said on CTV’s Question Period. “But we’re satisfied that the process is strong and robust.” (Bill Curry, Globe and Mail, November 16, 2015)
Mr. Goodale said this country is better situated than Europe to carefully select those to allow entry. “We have the advantage of being able to plan the process, which we are trying to do. Whereas they [Europeans] were dealing with spontaneous, ad-hoc, unexpected chaos.” (Adrian Morrow, Ingrid Peritz, and Steven Chase, Globe and Mail, November 17, 2015)
In its turn, the National Post is engaged in fearmongering tactics such as suggesting the possibility of these attacks in Canada, the perpetrators of violence having Canadian connections, and serious security risks in connection with Trudeau’s decision to settle twenty-five thousand Syrian refugees. See the following examples:
Of course in every Western country more people die in car accidents. Calm and perspective are essential. But Canada’s enviable position is nothing to take for granted. So it is somewhat worrying to see that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government continues to insist it will resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year, damn the torpedoes—and how many bien-pensant Canadians are absolutely certain this presents no risk whatsoever. Since Friday, a meme has made rounds on social media that of the hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees resettled in the United States since 2001, none has faced terrorism charges. In fact, an Uzbek refugee was convicted of terrorism conspiracy charges in Idaho in August; in 2013 two Iraqi refugees pleaded guilty to trying to send money to al-Qaida; and the Boston Marathon bomber bombers are only not refugees on a procedural technicality. It’s still a vanishingly low hit rate. But it doesn’t take many baddies to do a lot of harm. (Chris Selley, National Post, November 18, 2015)
They’ve also been reviewing CSIS “target sets” of potential and suspected Islamic extremists in Canada, looking at their recent activities and trying to identify which individuals might be seriously thinking of violence, or those who associate with such people. A recalibration could produce new priorities on whom to watch most closely. (Ian Macleod, National Post, November 18, 2015)
But as Trudeau fights accusations his reaction to the Paris attacks is unserious, his government’s continuing insistence on a wholly artificial deadline for resettling 25,000 refugees is a pointless and genuinely worrying fly in the ointment. Last week, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale even suggested some screening of refugees could be completed on Canadian soil, which is madness. Any Syrian citizen who lands on Canadian soil is here until Syria is safe to deport him to, and nobody seems to have a plan to make that so. (Chris Selley, National Post, November 18, 2015)
As can be seen from the previous analysis, combining three discourses is very prominent in the efforts of journalists from both newspapers to make their case either for allowing Syrian refugees or for barring “these people,” “large numbers of displaced people,” “malevolent terrorists,” “ostensible refugees,” and “desperate refugees.” Here, the “masses” and “arrivals” are not provided a single chance to speak for themselves. Related to this security framing are very problematic narratives of Islam as Other and versus the West and Islam as antisemitic, propagated in the coverage of the National Post. Such representation is exemplified in problematic and divisive statements such as the following:
A substantial part of the fundamental texts of Islam is violently hostile to non-Muslims, and to many categories of pallid Muslims also. ISIL is Islamic terrorism, and has no mitigating qualities. It is both evil and incapable and undesiring of coexistence with the West and its values, Judeo-Christian in origin, but of equal application to religious skeptics. (Conrad Black, National Post, November 17, 2015)
Still, Paris invites many comfortable urban Westerners, certainly Canadians, to contemplate a whole new brand of unease. Terrorist logic can be perversely comforting, and we may yet learn of some in respect to Friday’s attacks. Le Bataclan concert hall had received threats in the past on account of its longtime Jewish and pro-Israel owners. (Chris Selley, National Post, November 18, 2015)
Maybe there’s something there that Canadian officials can use in screening prospective refugees: How do you feel about Israel? How would you like to live among Jews? Ever chanted mort aux juifs? (Christie Blatchford, National Post, November 16, 2015)
One instance of using the Shia-Sunni divide as a pre-context for terrorism by a journalist of the Globe and Mail must also be noted. Although the author attempts to separate terrorism from Islam by using “so-called” in relation to ISIL, in the same sentence, he reinforces this linkage by suggesting that terrorism was inspired by the division along sectarian lines:
In the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s attack, Hezbollah issued a statement declaring itself enmeshed in a “long war” against the so-called Islamic State, the most extreme of an array of Sunni Muslim groups fighting Mr. al-Assad’s regime, which is dominated by followers of an offshoot of Shia Islam. (Mark MacKinnon, Globe and Mail, November 14, 2015)
The unprecedented hate crime targeting Muslims immediately following the Paris attacks resulted in only three articles within the period of November 13 to November 20, 2015. Whereas both newspaper agencies condemned this act of violence and called Canadians to stand as one, the statements present in the coverage of two journalists deserve special attention. Their articles use the linkage of migration, Islam, and terrorism to de-securitize refugees and dismantle deeply ingrained stereotypes advanced by the media:
And amid all this, a sizable portion of the West’s Muslim minority was once more issued a set of reminders. When Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz proposed accepting only Christian refugees from Syria because Christians do not commit acts of terrorism, it was a reminder. When an arsonist torched the only mosque in Peterborough, Ont., this weekend in a suspected hate crime, it was a reminder. The reminder is this: You do not belong here. You will never belong here. [. . .] The most existential threat to the Islamic State’s aspirations is what the terror group calls the “Grey Zone.” Within this zone reside all those who don’t fit into the narrative of a polar world, eternally at war. Within this zone resides the author of this article, a Muslim man, Middle Eastern by birth, Canadian by citizenship and cultural inclination. Within this zone reside the members of the St. John’s Anglican Church in Peterborough, who started a collection to help the city’s torched mosque rebuild. (Omar El Akkad, Globe and Mail, November 17, 2015)
Naheed Nenshi can often speak eloquently about the pluralistic wonder he considers Canada. But as one of the most high-profile Muslim figures in the country, the Calgary mayor admits he has been “shaken” by the closed-minded, even racist nature of some of the debate over the Syrian refugee crisis. Anti-Muslim hate crimes since the terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut have only added to the mayor’s burden. And while he says he is not concerned about his personal safety amid the current backlash, he believes Canadians need to stand as one against the reprehensible conduct of a few. (Gary Mason, Globe and Mail, November 19, 2015)
Conclusion
Both newspapers engaged in perpetuating a combined discourse linking migration, terrorism, and Islam. Resorting to the narratives of Islamic terrorism, Islam as antisemitic, and Islam as Other and versus the West, Canadian print media reinforces the idea that migration poses threats to the host population.
Despite the positive intentions of some authors, mostly from the Globe and Mail, to challenge the sensational coverage of the Paris attacks, many of them seem to have failed to disconnect three topics supporting the “proper screening” discourse advanced by the politicians at that time. Congruent with the findings in previous studies, an extremely diverse and resilient group of people—with accomplishments, dreams, and ambitions for their future lives—is presented as either “dangerous” or “vulnerable” and turned into objects with no agency. Such representation contributes to the creation of in-group/outgroup boundaries and unsettled refugee identities, both imagined (as “others,” unwilling and failing to adapt) and real (as subject to racial profiling, social exclusion, and discrimination).
However, separate instances of more responsible media coverage reflecting on the attackers having European nationality and on the unprecedented hate crime directed toward Canadian Muslims demonstrate that the same link of migration, terrorism, and Islam can be skillfully used to rehumanize refugees. Thus, the same combined discourse has a large potential to balance the discussion. Yet the media rarely uses this opportunity. A few thought-provoking contributions prompting readers to engage in more informed and critical thinking often get lost in the bigger picture, where boundaries between Muslim, Arab, Syrian, Islamist, extremist, and terrorist are blurred (Abu-Laban 2013, 2017).
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- Hammerstadt, Anne. 2014. “The Securitization of Forced Migration.” Chapter 21 in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, edited by Elena Fiddian Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long, and Nando Sigona. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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- Jaspal, R., and M. Cinnirella. 2010. “Media Representations of British Muslims and Hybridised Threats to Identity.” Contemporary Islam, 4(3), 289–310. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-010-0126-7.
- Karim, Karim H. 2000. Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence. Montréal: Black Rose Books.
- Kazemipur, Abdolmohammad. 2014. The Muslim Question in Canada: A Story of Segmented Integration. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
- Kazemipur, Abdolmohammad. 2018. “Religion in Canadian Ethnic Landscape: The Muslim Factor.” Chap. 13 in Immigration, Racial, and Ethnic Studies in 150 Years of Canada: Retrospects and Prospects, edited by Shibao Guo and Lloyd Wong. Boston: Brill Sense.
- Kumar, Deepa. 2010. “Framing Islam: The Resurgence of Orientalism During the Bush II Era.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 34 (3): 254–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0196859910363174.
- Lawlor, Andrea, and Erin Tolley. 2017. “Deciding Who’s Legitimate: News Media Framing of Immigrants and Refugees.” International Journal of Communication, February 2017, 967–91. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/6273/1946.
- Lecheler, Sophie, Jörg Matthes, and Hajo Boomgaarden. 2019. “Setting the Agenda for Research on Media and Migration: State-of-the-Art and Directions for Future Research.” Mass Communication & Society 22 (6): 691–707. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2019.1688059.
- McCafferty, Heather. 2005. “The Representation of Muslim Women in American Print Media: The Case Study of the New York Times.” Master’s diss., Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University. https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol2/002/MR24894.PDF?is_thesis=1&oclc_number=435871168.
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- Poole, E. 2016. “The United Kingdom’s Reporting of Islam and Muslims: Reviewing the Field.” Chap. 2 in Representations of Islam in the News: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, edited by S. Mertens and H. de Smaele. Lanham: Lexington Books.
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Appendix: Newspaper Articles Resulting from Search
- Bell, Stewart. 2015. “Voice on Terror Tape May Have Canadian Accent; Expert Opinion; Voice Sounds ‘North American,’ Says Professor.” National Post, November 16, 2015, A4.
- Black, Conrad. 2015. “‘You Will Never Take Our Liberty’; France Must Lead ISIL Offensive.” National Post, November 17, 2015, A1.
- Blatchford, Christie. 2015. “We Have Much to Learn from Israel.” National Post, November 16, 2015, A12.
- Clark, Campbell. 2015a. “France’s Ambassador to Canada Decries Backlash Against Syrian Asylum Seekers.” Globe and Mail, November 18, 2015, A4.
- Clark, Campbell. 2015b. “French Violence Makes Path Darker, More Tangled for the Rookie PM.” Globe and Mail, November 16, 2015, A4.
- Curry, Bill. 2015a. “Canada Stands with France, Trudeau Asserts.” Globe and Mail, November 14, 2015, A13.
- Curry, Bill. 2015b. “City of Light Mourns as Leaders Deliberate.” Globe and Mail, November 16, 2015, A1.
- Den Tandt, Michael. 2015. “Refugees an Opening for the Tories.” National Post, November 20, 2015, A8.
- El Akkad, Omar. 2015. “Anti-refugee Backlash Fuels Radicalization.” Globe and Mail, November 17, 2015, A14.
- Kennedy, Mark. 2015. “Wall Wants Refugee Plan Suspended; Terror Concerns.” National Post, November 17, 2015, A4.
- Leblanc, Daniel, and Jane Taber. 2015. “RCMP, CSIS Say Ottawa’s Refugee Plan Is Feasible.” Globe and Mail, November 19, 2015, A1.
- MacKinnon, Mark. 2015. “Beirut Bombings Kindly Flames of Conflict.” Globe and Mail, November 14, 2015, A6.
- Macleod, Ian. 2015. “Go Slow on Changes to Anti-terror Law, Trudeau Warned.” National Post, November 18, 2015, A8.
- Mason, Gary. 2015. “As Racism Taints Debate, Nenshi Asks Canadians to Stand as One.” Globe and Mail, November 19, 2015, A1.
- Morrow, Adrian, Ingrid Peritz, and Steven Chase. 2015. “PM Faces Pressure at Home and Abroad.” Globe and Mail, November 17, 2015, A1.
- Selley, Chris. 2015. “Why Such Haste on Syrian Refugees?” National Post, November 18, 2015, A6.
- Warnicka, Richard. 2015. “Neighbours Reach Out After Mosque Torched; Shock and Shame.” National Post, November 17, 2015, A7.
1 For a critical discussion of this “crisis,” see De Cleen, Zienkowski, Smets, Dekie, and Vandevoordt (2017); Sigona (2018); and Zaborowski and Georgiou (2016), as cited in Smetz and Bozdag 2018.
2 Such a generalization is often tied to the medieval times of Islamic rule. In accordance with the dominant academic and media discourse, this was a time when Jews were persecuted by Muslims. However, certain studies suggest that only one side of the story (Muslims victimized Jews and restricted them from practicing their religion) has been brought to the fore. The alternative viewpoint expressed in other scholarly works based on the translations of texts from medieval Jewish communities (“There was little compulsion upon Christians and Jews to convert”; “When the known facts are weighted, it can be revealed that the position of the non-Muslims under Arab/Islam was far better than that of Jewish in the Medieval Christian Europe”) has been largely disregarded (Karim 2000, 107–10).
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